


The Tribulations of John Winchester

by Hikary



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Boys Kissing, Canonical Character Death, Caring John Winchester, Domestic, Domestic Fluff, F/M, Family Fluff, Father-Son Relationship, First Crush, Good Parent John Winchester, John Winchester is a good dad, John Winchester secretly watches Supernanny, John and Ellen and Bobby are middle-age housewives, M/M, POV John Winchester, Protective Dad, Supportive John Winchester, but no angst I promise, everyone is so chill, mention of Auntie Amara being an eco-terrorist, pretty much all the baby angels & archangels are there somewhere, so domestic, teenagers in love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-30
Updated: 2019-08-30
Packaged: 2020-10-01 00:10:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,655
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20455856
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hikary/pseuds/Hikary
Summary: « Who's that boy, Sammy? »« Shut up, Dean! »Oh no.Oh, no.John Winchester loves his boys. It doesn't matter if witnessing Dean's love life as a teenager might as well be fatal. At least, it's going to be easier with Sam. Right?Right?





	The Tribulations of John Winchester

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Gondolin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gondolin/gifts).

> *I would like to dedicate this version of John Winchester to my mum, who should have been a meerkat because of her unholy surveillance skills, her defiance towards danger (especially insects) and amazing parental instinct. I love you mum. I hope you never cross paths with my AO3 account. 
> 
> *" When I need to relax, I type a few lines of this nonsense" - me texting my friend in the middle of the night.
> 
> *This shapeless, pointless stream of fluff was born at work, possibly under the effect of way too much caffeine and not even remotely enough sleep. Ages ago said friend wrote me a bilingual chat between Dean and Lucifer, and I also found a snippet of fic where John makes pancakes. My goal for 2019 was to write more domestic!John that is not necessarily in a John/Dean fic, so here we go! Also, I need to practice 'cause I am writing a longer fic where the main theme is "John raising kids and kinda sucking at hunting". 
> 
> *You will see a great lack of homophobia and related issues in this fic. I think we have enough in the real world.

« _Who's that boy, Sammy?_ »

It was a hot, summer afternoon, as lazy and uneventful as any late summer afternoon in Kansas should be. John Winchester had always seen himself as a simple man, with simple needs and a good temperament. It didn't matter that he had been fighting a losing war against his own kitchen for the last two hours and a half, and that the number of burnt food supplies could probably match up to the number of fallen soldiers during the War of Independence. He was truly, deeply enjoying this damn lazy, hot summer afternoon, a few weeks away from the school's start. He fucking _was_. And yet, Dean’s voice had to creep up inside the house from their front garden, teasing and just a little bit annoying, _so very Dean_. 

« _Who's that boy, Sammy?_ » 

John stretched like a cat, casually leaning towards the window, and even more casually opening said window. Because he was a dad, after all, that stereotypical old-fashioned kind of dad, and proudly so. Anyone who wished to _think _about dating one of his precious little boys had to be prepared to go to Hell and back to prove themselves. _Multiple times_.

« Shut up, Dean! »

Oh no.

_Oh, no_.

Sam had so many ways to say 'Dean', each and one of them all different. This high-pitched, slightly hysterical 'Dean' read 'fuck you, you are totally right' all over it. John had come to terms with the idea that Dean was _sort of maybe just a little bit_ grown up, but Sammy, _hell no_. Samuel Winchester was far too young to shower five times a day, steal John's cologne one drop at the time, sneak out of the window to go stargazing with his alleged 'best friend' in the middle of the night, or all those activities Dean was currently undertaking, utterly convinced he was being subtle and way smarter than John. 

There was also the fact that Sammy was intelligent, so intelligent John was worried sick the first time he will have done something stupid, he’d destroy the world or something, Not that he wasn't concerned about Dean breaking his backbone while jumping off his own window, or being run over by a car every time Castiel Novak smiled at him from across the street. Of course he was. Dean had experience, though, he had always practised some little, frequent fuck-ups every now and then, giving John a pretty clear picture of his son's weaknesses and limits. 

Sam was one hell of a mystery, and adolescence had only started a few years ago for him. John would have felt safer knowing the Apocalypse was approaching.

Ellen said he was overprotective of Sam and way too trusting of Dean. John begged to differ, at least in regard to the second allegation: he was completely, blindly trusting of _Castiel_, and Dean just happened to spend most of the times and to undertake the most dangerous tasks in his company. Plus, Dean and Sammy _were _different. 

One thing John had learnt about being a parent was that loving equally has nothing to do with treating the same. Fairly, yes, but that was another thing entirely. The pains and pride of having two human beings to raise were deeply rooted in that difference: Dean and Sammy were different people, not just 'the kids' or 'his boys'. He used to worry so much about Dean feeling less important because John was always so protective of Sammy; and he had often wondered whether Sammy felt left out from his relationship with Dean. It took him a while to understand that building different relationships with the two of them only validated them as real persons - no matter how tiny. 

(Well, technically, it took a sleepless night watching a weird but damn inspirational reality show about nannies and dysfunctional families, but no one needed to know about that.)

Dean was all over his dad, always had been. He was constantly reaching out to him - to talk, to laugh, to cuddle. Even now, as a teenager bordering adulthood, he gravitated around John with the same ease of a 3-year-old. Not once had John seen him embarrassed to shout a hurried but no less heartfelt 'love ya dad' while running off with his friends. The feeling was mutual. They matched, they made a great team - John didn't know how else to put it, because being around each other had been so damn easy from day one.

Time with Sam was a state of perpetual wonder and awe. Everything good in John - he thought - was there because of Sam, because that tiny, ridiculously serious version of himself was there to look up at him from his lap, eyes big and filled with unadulterated faith, making John want to be everything and anything, to love and protect that kid until his dying breath. Sam was over-analytical, focused to the point of becoming slightly obsessive, and he didn't spare human relationships from this academic approach. 

John always thought he would have actually liked Dean and Sammy as people, even if they hadn't been his children. He would have hanging out with them, laughed at their jokes. And that was a fucking great feeling for a father.

Sam, like his dad, didn't have Dean's extra glow, his ability to fill any room with his mere presence. Sometimes, John and Sam would lock eyes when Dean couldn't see them, and awkwardly grin at each other, a mix of admiration and fear of Dean's energy making them feel closer. But there were special times, when it was just the three of them, when Sammy loosened up and allowed himself to be silly, safe with the sound of John and Dean's laughter - loving laughs, never mocking ones. 

And yet, not in his wildest dreams, John could picture Sam coming up to him talking about _love_. He would have come with some _very generic_, very _non-self-related_ questions about relationships _in general_, and maybe asked about him and Mary. They both had known the real meaning of that chat, although none of them would have felt the need to say it out loud. 

On the other hand, Dean's first crush had hit the family like a train. Dean wouldn't stop talking about her - Cassie, the most bad-ass teenage girl John had ever seen in his life - and she wouldn't stop talking about how much Dean always talked about his father and Sammy. It had been extremely awkward and weirdly reassuring. John believed they had all hit a new low when Cassie moved away - breaking all of their hearts, as she had become part of the family. 

Little they knew. 

John exhaled and glanced at the boys talking (_shouting death threats to each other?_) in the garden. He still got chills thinking about 'The Vampire Thing'. Someone with a terrible sense of humour – Bobby? Ellen? Christ, he needed new friends - had named Dean’s second relationship after its most iconic feature: it was a night-only relationship. Now, John knew very well how that might sound in conversation, but there was nothing sexual about that nickname. (_About the nickname_. No one, but especially John, needed to know more about _other aspects_. The little he knew was enough.) 

Benny was a college student with a unique sense of adventure and great taste in music who came to Lawrence for a summer job. The job was a crappy night shift at the local 7Eleven. The infamous shift made him extremely popular among the Winchester’s, who spent the hottest summer days barricaded inside the house, and their nights buying ice cream and cold drinks at the store. It was one of their favourite things about staying in town – a night walk, a cold beer for John, ice cream for Sammy and some disgusting cherry popsicle for Dean. Benny had a deep Southern accent, and John still remembered his boys’ opposite reactions to it: Sammy had snorted, and asked his dad if the guy was from Scotland (somehow, he associated anything cacophonic with the Scottish), while Dean had walked into the toiletries aisle. Literally. John had done nothing to prevent it, because he thought it impossible, Dean was going to stop at some point, there was a 5-storey shelf directly in front of him. Nope. On the bright side, the loud noise of his forehead clashing with a row of shampoos had immediately attracted the sale assistant’s attention – Benny’s, in this case.

Dean was a whiner. A moper. An insufferable love-sick puppy by nature. He spent every waking second either soaking in his own overdramatic desperation for being too young, too boring, too _this_, too _that_, just name it, or hanging out with Benny during his shift – which completely invalidated his first activity. There was one night when he came home, well, _the next morning_, an amazing, wonderfully relaxing night where John had almost taken up cross-stitching to calm down. Dean had called him in the evening, asking with such a serious a mature voice if he could stay in the shop with Benny for the whole shift, promising to text John every hour or so, because it was Benny’s last night in Lawrence. They lived in the most boring, safe little town in America, and John could almost see the 7Eleven from the house. It had been one of those defining moments as a parent when you have to decide what’s your strategy in the game of parent-child trust. John thought about what his dad would have done, and then did the opposite – he said yes. When he had spotted Dean walking up the street, _coming home_, with the saddest smile John had ever seen on his face, John was sure his own heart had broken a little. It took Dean a while to talk about Benny, and John was very careful to avoid any topic that could remind him of that, but when Dean finally felt it was time to, John knew it made the right choices.

« You know dad, I really do miss him. A lot. But it’s okay. I’m glad we met. »

« That’s good, Dean, That’s a very grown-up thing to say. I’m sure he feels the same, too. You’re the one he wanted to spend his last night here with, right? By the way, that was... » a little cough, and then, every parents’ favourite adjective in the most difficult times « ..._okay_, wasn’t it? »

« Yeah. » Dean nodded and smiled to himself. « That was perfect. »

John had definitely earned a mental round of applause for handling the situation like a pro. What could have possibly scared him, after this?

The Shurley’s were the worst fit ever for Lawerence, so _of course_ the Winchester’s had to take the matter into their own hands. John was not sure, not even to this point, what to make of Chuck and his interesting collection of children – the biological ones, the adopted ones, the orphaned nephews he had raised, and possibly even the cat. He had heard half of the story about Chuck’s sister being in jail for eco-terrorism, although it wasn’t clear whether she was still in jail or not. John didn’t need to know anyway. He had spent the first week separating Dean and Michael, Chuck’s elder son, because the boys had taken an immediate dislike to each other. It had taken a while to realise how Dean was more prone to fight with the new kid when Michael was being mean to a certain blue-eyed boy, more or less Dean’s age, one of Chuck’s adopted nephews. 

The situation had escalated quickly.

None of this backstory, however, was helping John with the current Sam-situation. He should have taken (more) notes. He should have called Ellen.

_He did call Ellen, _in the end.

Ellen ran him through all the possible outcomes for Sam, and they both agreed John should have kept a couple of fake passports and some acid in the basement, just in case. He ended up giving her updates about Dean’s life, because at some point in-between the death of their respective spouses and now, they had all (Bobby was not present but definitely included) become middle-aged gossipy housewives.

« I know, Ellen! What about this: I’m telling Dean he cannot see Castiel anymore. For no reason, like a random parental decision from one of those teen movies Sammy likes. »

« Do I even want to know this plan? »

« So then _hopefully _Dean will have a mental breakdown and realize the only way to solve his teen angst is to bring his best friend to prom. »

« I don't think giving your child an emotional breakdown is considered an acceptable parenting technique. »

« Yeah, I was afraid so. Damn. »

John instinctively looked up, as he often did, and made a face at the ceiling.

« I know you're up there, looking, and I know you're laughing your ass off. I'm telling you, this is not funny. Just wait for me to come upstairs and you'll hear about it. »

« John...? »

« Sorry. Talking to Mary. »

Ellen sighed. The fact that John sometimes addressed his long-dead wife had stopped being a concern a while ago. 

« Have you considered talking to Dean about this? »

« Ellen, I am his father. There are things out of my jurisdiction. »

« You just gotta put your crap together and give Dean the talk, and sometime soon. Not to mention, I think that boat has sailed a long time ago with the college guy- » 

« I am perfectly fine talking about _sex_ with the boys. Okay, maybe not with Sam, but Sammy is _a child._ But I am so not getting into romance and friendarea- »

« I believe it's called 'friendzone'. »

« ...that, and feelings and butterflies. He can come to me, but hell if I’ll ever start a conversation about _his feelings for_ _Castiel-_ »

A sudden noise made John aware he had company. He turned to find both his children looking at him. Dean was especially suspicious.

« Who has feelings for Cas? »

John started tapping the Morse code for ‘help’ on the phone, hoping Ellen would get the hint. Help came anyway, from the most unexpected source.

« _You. _» Sam deadpanned. 

« _Sam! _»

« You do. » Sam shrugged, while John kept staring in disbelief. « You are totally in love with him, and so is he, by the way. He told me this morning that he had planned a surprise to ask you to prom, but he changed his mind ‘cause you’re obviously not into him. »

Dean almost shrieked and ran out of the house so fast John could swear he felt the air shifting around him.

« Uhm, Ellen? I gotta go. I think the problem has been...dealt with. »

« I love you all, but Sammy needs a good exorcism. »

« Yeah. We’ll see to it. »

Sammy smiled at his father, the perfect picture of innocence.

« So. Why would you know about Castiel’s plans from prom? »

« Oh, I made that up. »

« I am a responsible parent so if anyone asks, I didn’t find this funny. » 

« But it’s quite funny, isn’t it dad? »

« It’s the best thing ever. I love you, buddy. We should get popcorn and sit on the patio. Just, you know, _enjoy it _while it happens. »

« Yes! »

« _But_ before we act like the embarrassing family we are, I just need to know: this guy, is he a good guy? »

Sam’s face lighted up instantly. John had never seen him like this, not even when they got him the Complete Annotated Shakespeare for Christmas. Shit, this was scary.

« I think so. I mean, he is so _nice _to me. Well, not _nice_, just... I think he really cares, dad. And I like him. A lot. »

« Well, then. I suppose that settles it. »

« And he’s one of Chuck’s kids, by the way. He just moved in with them. He was in boarding school, in Québec. »

« Holy hell, boarding school. Fine. And what’s Prince Charming’s name? »

« _Nick_. »

_Nick_. _Well, _John thought to himself_, it’s such a simple, reassuring name. This Nick sounds like no trouble at all._

**Author's Note:**

> *If you made it 'till the endnotes, you deserve a bowl of cereals! (ah ah ah will this joke ever get old I DON'T THINK SO)
> 
> *This shall be known as the fic in which John Winchester watches Supernanny BECAUSE I LOVE SUPERNANNY. Although the Italian version remains the best.
> 
> *Domestic!John being a chaotic good dad is my favourite thing. I think he will love Cas to bits, but he will secretly have a soft spot for Lucifer. (Lucifer is like a nicer version of Mr Wickham, clearly XD)
> 
> *I get all warm and fuzzy inside thinking Dean's first time might have been with Benny. Benny is literally the best human being in that show. And he's a vampire. I mean.


End file.
